In recent weeks, there have been high-profile crime scenes in places like Lakeview, Gentilly and Mid-City.

From car break-ins to officers being shot and a former WDSU employee robbed at gunpoint outside his home -- residents said the crime has never been so bad in areas of the city previously considered safe.

Many of the crimes are happening in the New Orleans Police Department's Third District. The WDSU I-Team recently obtained new information on exactly how many officers are patrolling the area and the numbers are shocking to some people.

In Lakeview, more and more people are buying cameras to catch crimes as they happen. One surveillance camera last week caught three men canvassing a neighborhood near City Park and going into an unlocked car.

Gino Ascani with Lakeview Crime Watch uploaded the video to Facebook. He said it has been viewed more than 100,000 times.

"It definitely shocked everybody," Ascani said.

Ascani helped organize a community crime concern meeting in August. He said dozens of people turned out last week to address the same issues at a civic improvement meeting. He said the biggest issue is a lack of officers on patrol.

"The problem is the numbers are so down that it's hard to do what they need to do to protect the citizens of New Orleans," Ascani said.

The NOPD admitted in a recent meeting that it was short-staffed in the Third District. In 2012, the city entered into an agreement with the federal government to reform the NOPD, a consent decree.

The consent decree requires all district commanders to meet with what's called police community advisory boards, which are groups of selected citizens from each district.

The I-Team obtained details from the August meeting in the Third District. District Commander Gary Marchese admitted during the meeting that 70 officers are assigned to the Third District. It's a number that caught former Officer Chad Perez off-guard.

"Yeah, absolutely it's alarming. Seventy is not a lot to have in any district, especially one the size of the Third District," Perez said.

Perez is a former patrol officer who now runs private security details in the French Quarter.

"Even if you have 10 officers assigned to each platoon, you're not going to have 10 officers patrolling a day. Each officer needs two days off a week, then you have to deal with people out sick and such, so the reality is with a district of 70, you're probably (going to) have three to four officers actually on patrol," he said.

Seventy officers is a 40 percent decrease from 2003. Marchese said 120 officers patrolled the Third District back then. In 2006, the district had 100 officers.

The numbers come as people living in parts of the district say crime is spiking, from break-ins to armed robberies. Perez said criminals know officers are scarce.

"They know the chances of a police car passing by them is slim. So they are going to take that chance to go out and try and walk the neighborhood and see what they can get," Perez said.

Another issue that came out at the August meeting of the community advisory board: patrolling the Lafitte Greenway, a state-of-the-art urban biking and walking path that runs from Mid-City to the municipal auditorium in Treme.

NOPD officials told board members while the Greenway is a great asset, the Police Department has concerns about patrolling the area because it can't easily handle patrol cars. Officials said the NOPD is working on a strategic plan to better patrol the area.

The NOPD's crime map shows that in September, 28 incidents have been reported in Lakeview. The crimes ranged from theft to assault.